SBG 170: Lemonade Mouth with Franco Stevens and Jen Rainin of The Curve Foundation

SBG 170: Lemonade Mouth with Franco Stevens and Jen Rainin of The Curve Foundation

Pride Month may be over, but we’re still here, queer, and full of existential fear. Lez Hang Out Podcast is unfortunately quite an expense to produce and much of our funding comes from our incredible supporters over on Patreon. You can help us keep our little indie pod afloat for another season by joining our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] family at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by selecting an annual subscription at checkout.  You can also support the pod by shopping small at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/]. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is coming to you live from detention.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with the co-founders of The Curve Foundation [https://thecurvefoundation.org/] (@curvefdn), Franco Stevens (@frankostevens), the founder of Curve Magazine [https://www.curvemag.com/] (@curvemag), and wife, filmmaker Jen Rainin [https://franklyspeakingfilms.com/] (@franklyspeakingfilms), and talk about why the Disney Channel Original Movie, Lemonade Mouth [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1648204/], Should’ve Been Gay. With Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut, Girls Like Girls, currently playing in theaters, we thought it would be fun to take a trip back to 2011 when a young Hayley Kiyoko rocked the stage (and an aggressively asymmetrical bob) as Stella.  Lemonade Mouth is actually the first DCOM that Franco and Jen have ever seen! We are delighted to have opened this door for them to the tween-Hallmark Movie experience. But even for a DCOM, Lemonade Mouth is on another level when it comes to being a queerer Breakfast Club with flip-phones. Hayley Kiyoko’s lesbian-coded “Stella” isn’t even the gayest thing about this movie, and she’s literally an anticapitalist vegetarian teenager with a rock band.  We know one thing for sure, Lemonade Mouth Should’ve Been Gay. How do your favorite lesbian movies and tv shows hold up against The Curve Test [https://www.curvemag.com/the-curve-test/]?  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). This is our final episode for Season 9. Thank you so much for all of your support. We couldn’t keep making this pod without you! We’ll see you in late August for Season 10. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

922: Couple Trouble with Rev. Anne-Marie Zanzal and Anna Empey

It’s the final hours of Pride month! Now is a perfect time to join our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Becoming a member is the absolute best way to help keep this little pod that could chugging along. Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that believes all lesbian relationships can be improved through color-coded journaling.  This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) are joined by two very special guests. First up, we have Rev. Anne-Marie Zanzal [https://annemariezanzal.com/] (@annemariezanzalcoaching [https://www.instagram.com/annemariezanzalcoaching/]), a LGBTQIA+ coach specializing in helping women who are questioning their sexualities and going through the journey of coming out. Anne-Marie also runs the “Authentically Us Community” for late-in-life lesbians alongside hosting the Coming Out & Beyond Podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their/id1569859569]. Next, we are joined by Anna Empey [https://annaempey.com/] (@anna.empey [https://www.instagram.com/anna.empey/]), a business development consultant and LGBTQ+ coach with 14+ years of experience.  Together in collaboration with lesbian psychologist, Dr. Robin Sesan, Anne-Marie and Anna have created the Healthy Lesbian Relationships [https://healthylesbianrelationships.com/] course, a lifetime access course that provides pre-recorded video lessons, journaling prompts, a workbook with lesson-specific exercises, and a private online community of lesbian couples to connect with. Whether you are a late-in-life lesbian or a right-on-time lesbian, the Healthy Lesbian Relationships course can help you and your partner to build patterns of positive interaction for lasting intimacy, better understand one another’s communication and attachment styles, manage emotional triggers, and master the art of the “do-over” conversation.  We’ve talked a lot this season about lesbian marriage, and although we pride ourselves in being experts, we thought maybe it was time to bring on some actual, legitimate experts. We chat with Anne-Marie and Anna about the unique challenges that lesbian couples face, that annoying divorce rate statistic that the straights always use against us, the pathologization of “lesbian bed death”, and the casual intimacy of coming home to clean dishes.  If you are questioning your sexuality, the free “Maybe I’m Not Straight [https://annemariezanzal.com/maybe-im-not-straight-guide/]” guide is the perfect place to begin your journey. If you’re already in a sapphic relationship and looking to make it even better, check out the free guide, “Tips for Strengthening Your Lesbian Relationship [https://annemariezanzal.com/strengthening-your-lesbian-relationship-free-guide/]”.  Don’t forget to show your support for our tiny (and mighty!) podcasting team by shopping small this summer at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our original Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/].  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

SBG 169: The Devil Wears Prada 2 with Kristin Murison

If you’re still wondering how you can give back to the community this Pride season, we have the answer! Keep our little indie pod afloat by joining our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that fell in love with the shape of a woman long before Gaga made it cool.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Lez Hang Out’s very own production assistant and professional mermaid, Kristin Murison (@therealksparkle [https://www.instagram.com/therealksparkle]), and talk about why the 2026 blockbuster hit, The Devil Wears Prada 2 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33612209], should’ve been gay. If you missed our Should’ve Been Gay episode on the original The Devil Wears Prada film we highly recommend listening [https://open.spotify.com/episode/44eMVUgLq7GndrYbKG1eZO?si=2w0HQCqTRCCB67RHmUVv-A] to it first for the perfect podcast double feature. You could tell us that the entirety of this nearly 2-hour long sequel takes place in Emily Charlton’s head as she recovers in the hospital after being hit by a taxi in the first movie and we would believe you. It’s simply too gay of a script for there to be any other explanation aside from ‘lesbian fever dream’. Whether you ship Mirandy, Sachston, or a secret third thing (we suggest Lucy Liu and literally any other woman on screen), you will come out of DWP2 extremely well-fed. Although it has been 2 decades since Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) graced our screens, her red heels remain firmly on the necks of lesbians everywhere. Not even the decline of print journalism, the rise of fast fashion, and a full-on scandal can dethrone the queen of Runway. By reputation alone, she gets Lady Gaga to perform what is undoubtedly her gayest song since Born This Way. Yet, even Miranda and Lady Gaga’s chemistry isn’t the gayest thing about DWP2. That title is shared by the Emilys– Andy “I froze my eggs and have never hidden a feeling in my entire life” Sachs (Anne Hathaway) and Emily “I’m divorced and visibly repulsed by any man I have to get physically close to” Charlton (Emily Blunt), who spend the entire film openly ogling one another and bickering like an old married couple while wearing increasingly more masc outfits. They’re pretty much canonically dating by the end, bonding over a plate of shared carbs as Emily confesses to having called Andy all those years ago (all but admitting that she has been holding on to the disappointment of Andy not calling her back for literally 20 years). If that’s not a lesbian fever dream, we don’t know what is. We know one thing for sure, The Devil Wears Prada 2 Should’ve Been Gay. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Support the pod by shopping small for your Pride #ootd at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

921: Friend Zone with Daniel Lavery

Happy Pride month!  Running this show is unfortunately not cheap, and we need all the community support we can get during Pride and beyond to keep the pod going. Now is a perfect time to join our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is genuinely wondering where adults go to meet new friends. This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with New York Times Best Selling author Daniel Lavery to discuss his new fiction novel, Meeting New People [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/meeting-new-people-daniel-m-lavery-2?variant=44287888588834], available now. Meeting New People follows the story of Barbara, a difficult, twice-divorced woman in her late 50s, as she grapples with the 9th best-friend-breakup of her life. As Barbara seeks to make her 10th (and hopefully final) best friend, she analyzes her relationships with her past 9 best friends to try to figure out what went wrong.  Although Barbara very much claims to be straight, there is something distinctly sapphic in the intense, monogamous nature of her best-friendships and the way each one burns fast and bright before imploding dramatically. She is a particularly judgemental person who is very set in her ways and has strong beliefs on how the world works and how friendship should be. It vexes her to no end that she has followed all the rules and still ended up alone. Even though Barbara does recognize to some extent that her beliefs and behaviors are alienating her from the very community she so desperately desires, she remains heavily resistant to changing her ways in order to become more palatable. Barbara may have some rigid thought processes and generationally outdated ideas on friendship, but we believe she remains relatable in her strong yearning for understanding, acceptance, and community bonds. We find in Barbara a realistic depiction of self-growth and a glimpse into the challenges of coping with an ever-evolving social landscape.  We’ve all known at least one Barbara in our lives, and as sapphics, we are no stranger to the overly intense, vaguely homoerotic best-friendship that tends to crash and burn. Meeting New People puts us front and center for Barbara’s inner monologues and unique perceptions of reality and asks us to consider if she’s actually wrong or simply unlikeable by today’s standards.  Pick up your own copy of Meeting New People [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/meeting-new-people-daniel-m-lavery-2?variant=44287888588834] wherever you shop for books or find it at your local library. Don’t forget to show your support for our tiny (and mighty!) podcasting team by shopping small for your Pride merch at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our original Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/].  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

SBG 168: Dirty Dancing with Jenny Hagel

Happy Pride!  The best way to support the gays this month is by joining our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlocking our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that would never, under any circumstances, put a Baby Gay in the corner. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Emmy-nominated TV writer (Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Amber Ruffin Show) and comedy performer, Jenny Hagel (@jennyhagel [https://www.instagram.com/jennyhagel/]), and talk about why the 1987 hit movie-musical, Dirty Dancing [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092890/], Should've Been Gay. We thought we were big Dirty Dancing fans, but Jenny one thousand percent has us both beat. When this film was released, it was the talk of the school for anyone whose parents allowed them to see it. For Jenny and all the others whose parents said “no way”, sneakily watching Dirty Dancing at a sleepover was basically a right of passage (and a spiritual experience). Ever since the first time Jenny laid eyes on Jennifer Grey, Dirty Dancing has been playing on a loop in her head.  Very few things need to be changed to make Dirty Dancing a canonically queer film. Francis “Baby Gay” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is already a clear lesbian. There’s literally nothing more lesbian than rolling into an unfamiliar situation and deciding it is now your job to solve a crime (and then solving that crime!). Francis’ big clipboard energy is off the charts. Patrick Swayze as “Johnny Castle" isn't exactly giving heterosexual either. His whole persona reads as more ‘butch lesbian’ than straight dude. Not to mention that just 8 years later, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar was released starring Patrick Swayze as the drag queen, Vida. It’s not exactly a leap for us to view this cult classic as a Dirty Dancing sequel where Johnny is finally living his truth.  We know one thing for sure, Dirty Dancing Should’ve Been Gay. Don’t forget to pick up your own copy of Jenny’s debut book of essays, “Advice No One Asked For” [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Advice-No-One-Asked-For/Jenny-Hagel/9781668079614] available now!  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Support the pod by shopping small for your Pride #ootd at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]